'We've got Barney Fife on duty'

LAWNDALE — Tim Canipe knows the area he lives in. The Delight community, nestled in between Lawndale and Casar, stretches along a winding road of about 15 homes.

He knows his neighbors' faces. Their cars.

When visitors are expected. And when they aren’t.

“That’s what I’m supposed to do. I’ve done no different than anyone else,” Canipe said as he recalled the events of Thursday afternoon.

Canipe’s keen eye, with pistol in hand, aided deputies who arrested two men wanted in a home robbery in the Delight community. Both men are suspected to be involved with a rash of home break-ins within Cleveland and Rutherford counties, Cleveland County Sheriff Alan Norman said.

Canipe sat calmly in his living room’s arm chair as he thought back to about 2 p.m. that afternoon.

“No one was supposed to be there,” he said. “They’re fooling around with people who work hard. I hate a thief.”

‘He took off like a gazelle’

Canipe, a former mechanic, prepared to go to the store. His wife, Peggy, was inside their home surrounded by a scenic mountain view.

He untangled the leash around his dog’s neck when he noticed a truck sitting in the yard of neighbor’s home across the street. He didn’t recognize the truck. His neighbors weren’t home.

Canipe went across the street. He found a man sitting in the driver’s seat of a truck later identified as 26-year-old Brandon Erwin Shires, of Ellenboro, according to an arrest report from the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office.

“I asked, ‘You ain’t been messing around with this trailer have you?’” Canipe remembered. “He told me no and that he was looking for someone.”

The second suspect, identified as 25-year-old Matthew Todd Stacey, of Ellenboro, was met by Canipe driving a truck.

“He took off like a gazelle, and I cut him off with my truck,” Canipe said. “I showed him the pistol I keep in my truck. I told him, ‘Surely, you’re not that stupid to take off so you might as well just sit down.'”

Stacey did, Canipe said.

The sound of deputy sirens from below a hill on the street grew louder.

'Most homes are broken into during the daylight hours'

Peggy said she’s always felt safe with Canipe, but Thursday’s ordeal reassured the wife of nearly four years.

Canipe never second guessed his actions. The thought of getting hurt while approaching two break-in suspects never crossed his mind.

“I’m not scared of anything. The most they can do is kill me,” Canipe said.

He leaned back in his arm chair as the news played on the living room television.

Deputies arrested Shires a short distance from the residence, according to a press release from the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office.

Norman commended Canipe on being observant as well as handling the situation in an acceptable manner.

“In the times we’re living in, we’re seeing citizens in this county rise up against crime,” Norman said. “Most homes are broken into during the daylight hours.”

He said the sheriff’s office can’t protect and serve alone.

“They need help,” he said. “Had I not shown that gun to that boy, he wouldn’t have stopped. Thieves are going to run into someone not as lenient as I was.”

Barney Fife of the Delight community

Canipe’s quick-thinking earned him a nickname from his neighbor any fan of "The Andy Griffith Show" would recognize.

“He told me, ‘We don’t need any security system because we’ve got Barney Fife on duty,’” Canipe said with a laugh. Peggy joined him.

Sheriff’s deputies booked Stacey into the Cleveland County Detention Center under a $75,000 secured bond. He faces one charge of felony breaking/entering and two additional for trafficking opium or heroin. Shires was released on an unsecured bond, but faces one charge of felony breaking/entering, the press release read.